Pay for a copywriter or pay to drive traffic and learn and optimize

Hello,
This is my first post and I apologize if this has already been covered extensively. We are launching an online program in a health food niche. The program content will include classes, webinars, meal plans, etc. After a playing around with a meal delivery model a la Blue Apron we are changing to make it all digital. I have a budget of $1500 for the site and landing page copy and to get it optimized. My question is, do I hire a copywriter to write the main page and landing page, or do we create this ourselves and use the $1500 to drive traffic and optimize the pages? We do not have a current site. We took down the old copy. So we have little to show and guide the copywriter.

My partner wants to work with a copywriter immediately to help us formulate what we are offering and how we are different. I think we should be able to get a rough landing page and then the funds are better used getting clicks and letting actual potential customers lead us, and then have a copywriter help us finesse the language.

I understand I am posting this in the copywriter forum but any input is on the best way to proceed would be appreciated.

So if you hire a cheap Copywriter to do all that for $1500, you won't be able to afford any traffic? You need good Copy, AND you need traffic.

I hate to break it to you but you're not going to both of those for $1500. :/

Maybe pickup some books on Copywriting and try to do the best you can, then spend the rest on traffic? There's a good chance you'll be wasting $1500, you don't have much in the way of options with a budget that small.

Focus on the important elements like headlines and try to do as much A/B testing as you can on that budget.

If you hire a Copywriter and have no money for traffic, that's just a waste. Grade A Copy doesn't convert with no one to read it.

This might sound a little strange coming from a guy who gets paid to do what you're asking to have done. But, I'd recommend starting with your idea, instead of your partners...

Originally Posted by spsmith59

My partner wants to work with a copywriter immediately to help us formulate what we are offering and how we are different. I think we should be able to get a rough landing page and then the funds are better used getting clicks and letting actual potential customers lead us, and then have a copywriter help us finesse the language.

Although I wouldn't spend your entire budget, all at once, driving traffic. Just send enough traffic so you can get some analytical numbers to look at (1000 human visitors should be plenty to get a basic idea of how your audience responds to your offer)

Not only will this give you some experience, but it will also give your copywriter / marketer something to work with. (if you called me... other than just asking you a bunch of questions about your business and your target audience, I would also want to see some basic numbers from what you've done so far)

As Cam Connor already said, you don't have a whole lot of money to work with. So start with learning some basic copywriting, and start testing your offer to your target audience.

Quick Hint: When you write your sales copy... Just make sure you write it, speaking to your audience, about the benefits of your offer to "them."

Try to take every feature of your product, that you think is great... and turn it into a benefit for your reader.

Because the truth is... no one cares about what you have, until they know what it will do for them.

If you get stuck turning features into benefits, try filling in the blanks on either of these sentences...

Our (product / service)_ does / is (feature) which means _(benefit)_ for you

You'll love our (product / services) because it will provide you with (or allow you to) (benefit)

Really big fan of learning the process aka studying so you gain clarity and confidence in the in's and out's of copy. Spend a few months doing this. Then you can proceed with a copywriter or paid traffic. But really dig in; be a student.

Quick Hint: When you write your sales copy... Just make sure you write it, speaking to your audience, about the benefits of your offer to "them."

Try to take every feature of your product, that you think is great... and turn it into a benefit for your reader.

Because the truth is... no one cares about what you have, until they know what it will do for them.

If you get stuck turning features into benefits, try filling in the blanks on either of these sentences...

Our (product / service)_ does / is (feature) which means _(benefit)_ for you

You'll love our (product / services) because it will provide you with (or allow you to) (benefit)

Best of luck with your venture

All the best,
SAR

Here's an expansion on that exercise that will help lead you to the ultimate benefit for your prospects/customers.

After you complete the sentences above, ask yourself "SO WHAT?"

Come up with an answer? You haven't reached the ultimate benefit from that feature yet. So ask again -- so what?

Keep asking the question until you can't come up with an answer. That's the ultimate benefit of that feature.

At a minimum, you'll have a much longer list of benefits than you would by simply trying to think of them. At best, you'll be speaking directly to the emotional part of the brain that makes buying decisions with your ultimate benefits, while having a bunch of rational benefits the other part of the brain can use to justify the decision.

I agree with the others here, before you consider hiring a copywriter or use paid traffic, you might want to study how to optimize, write copy, and drive traffic first. Use your budget to test the waters first before you decide what path you wish to take. Try things out yourself first until you decide that it's time to outsource.

If you are starting a business in the niche then you probably already know alot about what you want to talk about? I would refrain from hiring a copywriter off the bat. It would make sense to me to put your resources into optimising the website (get a keyword analysis done) and then once your site is up and running and is in an ok SERP position, then think about using a copy writer. To me, a copywriter has a much more beneficial function in PR activities, rather than as the bulk of your content

I think you have to invest more in SEO instead of copywriting because the SEO optimization is more important. Copywriting is the thing that you can do yourself after few practices, but if you spend less on SEO then it affects your website. To earn long-term benefit I think you should go with SEO optimization.

I think copywriting and SEO don't have to be an either/or thing! SEO isn't what it used to be. You can build some SEO into your copy and some of your heads/subheads if you know what you're doing.

And I also believe sending traffic to a page that doesn't have effective copy isn't going to do much for you. Depending on what your subject is, you can get quite a bit of traffic through Facebook ads...

Work on driving traffic which is much harder. Copywriting seems pretty difficult especially if you don't like to write or are not a natural writer but it's not that hard. What saved me is learning some writing tricks and formulas that you can use to promote and sell anything. It's pretty lethal once you understand and practice them. It's all based on character types and storylines that appeal to everyone. For example, one character type is Braveheart. Once you understand and master this character, you can use him to tell a story in your blog, newletter, website, email, etc. that is irresistible. The real fun begins when you begin to mix and match storylines and character types. You never run out of things to say, then to your customer base.

Hello,
This is my first post and I apologize if this has already been covered extensively. We are launching an online program in a health food niche. The program content will include classes, webinars, meal plans, etc. After a playing around with a meal delivery model a la Blue Apron we are changing to make it all digital. I have a budget of $1500 for the site and landing page copy and to get it optimized. My question is, do I hire a copywriter to write the main page and landing page, or do we create this ourselves and use the $1500 to drive traffic and optimize the pages? We do not have a current site. We took down the old copy. So we have little to show and guide the copywriter.

My partner wants to work with a copywriter immediately to help us formulate what we are offering and how we are different. I think we should be able to get a rough landing page and then the funds are better used getting clicks and letting actual potential customers lead us, and then have a copywriter help us finesse the language.

I understand I am posting this in the copywriter forum but any input is on the best way to proceed would be appreciated.

Thank you

What's copy without an audience? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, have you wasted $1,500?

Get the traffic...

...Of course, if you have time, you might want to learn all you can about copy AND driving traffic before you invest any $$.

... But a primed audience beats good copy any day, so if it's one or the other, you know what to do...

Hello,
This is my first post and I apologize if this has already been covered extensively. We are launching an online program in a health food niche. The program content will include classes, webinars, meal plans, etc. After a playing around with a meal delivery model a la Blue Apron we are changing to make it all digital. I have a budget of $1500 for the site and landing page copy and to get it optimized. My question is, do I hire a copywriter to write the main page and landing page, or do we create this ourselves and use the $1500 to drive traffic and optimize the pages? We do not have a current site. We took down the old copy. So we have little to show and guide the copywriter.

My partner wants to work with a copywriter immediately to help us formulate what we are offering and how we are different. I think we should be able to get a rough landing page and then the funds are better used getting clicks and letting actual potential customers lead us, and then have a copywriter help us finesse the language.

I understand I am posting this in the copywriter forum but any input is on the best way to proceed would be appreciated.

Thank you

There are pros and cons to both ideas.

First, if you hire a good copywriter, you will have a great landing page ready to convert any traffic you get. However, you have to pay the copywriter and you have to find one good enough to create a high converting landing page.

Second, if you try to create, as you said, a "rough" landing page and use the money to feed traffic to it, you may find that you get very few, if any conversions.

Finally, I would do a combination of the two. You should be able to hire a copywriter for this project for far less than $1,500. So maybe split it in half. Find a good copywriter for $750 and use $750 to drive traffic to the landing page.